An Introduction to Particle Physics at the Rutherford Laboratory

Prof. Dave Wark, FRSSTFC Director of Particle Physics

RAL/Imperial College London

Graduate Lecture. NMcC Oct 20102

• ~65 people in Particle Physics Department (PPD), ~45 have PhDs, plus engineering, instrumentation, accelerator, and computing in other parts of the laboratories.

• We are like a very large university HEP group, except that we concentrate on supporting the rest of the UK community through major equipment build (ATLAS SCT, CMS ECAL Endcaps, T2K electronics) and on support activities that require 24/7/365 availability.

• We provide an ‘interface’ for the whole PP UK community to specialist skills in other RAL/STFC departments:

– Technology: electronics, mechanical engineering;– Computing: the UK Tier-1 is here, and we are part of the South Grid Tier-2

consortium;– Accelerator R&D: ASTEC, which works closely with the Cockcroft and

Adams Institutes;– Project management and administration: e.g financial tendering

• RAL site and PPD have been, and are, undergoing massive change: much more building over last 5 years than in previous 25…. : Diamond, ISIS Target Station 2, new hostel, new main gate, new computer building, new research building, meanwhile PPD is being restructured....

Particle Physics DepartmentParticle Physics Department

Graduate Lecture. NMcC Oct 20103

Current projects in PPDCurrent projects in PPDProject Approx.

FTE Funding Located at Programme 2010-2012

ATLAS 18 STFC CERN M&O, analysis, tracker upgrade

CMS 11 STFC CERN M&O, analysis, upgrade

LHCb 5 STFC CERN M&O, analysis, upgrade

Computing 8 STFC, EU RAL Grid software, Tier (1,2,3) support

Neutron EDM 4 STFC ILL Deploy cryo-detector, M&O, analysus

Dark Matter 4 STFC Boulby Laboratory

Zeplin III M&O, analysis; plus management of Boulby facility.

Detector R&D 5 STFC RAL, university collaborators

Developments for future PP experiments, and non-PP applications

Neutrino experiments

6 STFC FermilabJ-PARC

MINOS; T2K

Neutrino accelerator R&D

2 + … STFC(+ EU) RAL MICE; Neutrino Factory design studies; FFAG/EMMA

NExT 3 (joint) STFC/HEFCE RAL + So’ton +

RHUL+Sussex(Virtual) Institute for Phenomenology.

Support 8 STFC RAL, UKLO Programme support for UK community

Two-score and ten years ago the RHEL was

founded to build this:

Nimrod

Last of the weak focussing machines…

The Origin of RHEL• Sir John Cockcroft, Director of Harwell, felt strongly that new

discoveries in nuclear physics were leading to experiments at a scope beyond individual university programmes.

• However he thought it critical that the university groups be major players in the field.

• He therefore opened up the accelerators at Harwell to university involvement, however he wanted to move beyond that to a new organization which would explicitly include the universities.

• Many of the large university groups were deeply suspicious of this effort, believing it an attempt by a national laboratory to infiltrate university physics and take over the field.

• Thanks goodness nobody thinks like that anymore…• Thanks to the efforts of Cockcroft, and to Gerry Pickavance

(first director of RHEL) and later Godfrey Stafford, this suspicion was overcome and the close working relationship which has come to be called the “Rutherford Model” was developed.

Nimrod was very much the incubator of UK HEP

• Nimrod theses by (amongst others): CJS Damerell, RM Brown, AA Carter, PJ Litchfield, VJ Smith, JA Strong, DH Saxon, CJ Batty, JC Hart, TA Broome, FJ Wickens, G Hall, J Carr,…(125 total)

• Reading through the lists of UK publications from the old reports is a Who’s Who of HEP.

• Let us not forget Daresbury, where NINA played a similar role on the electron side, leading to the SRS and hence to Diamond…

• NIMROD was operated successfully until 1978.• Since then RAL particle physicists have moved

from strength to strength, becoming important contributors in almost every field of particle physics at almost every major facility in the world.

• SPIRES lists 8031 papers with a Rutherford Lab affiliation.

• 1164 have been cited 50+ times• 474 have been cited 100+ times• 32 have been cited 500+ times• 12 have been cited 1000+ times• I’ve only got 40 minutes, so I will only go

through the 474 papers……just kidding

8040 8044 80859273

The Evolution of the PDB...

This is simple?!?

TASSO

JADE

H1

ZEUS

The 1st Neutrino Horn Gargamelle

opal

CDFD0

H?ATLAS

CMS

Still Many Questions…

• What is there besides the Standard Model?– Why is there only matter in the Universe?

Still Many Questions…

• What is there besides the Standard Model?– Why is there only matter in the Universe?

Still Many Questions…

• What is there besides the Standard Model?– Why is there only matter in the Universe?– What is the Dark Matter?

Still Many Questions…• What is there besides the Standard Model?

– Why is there only matter in the Universe?– What is the Dark Matter?– What is the Dark Energy?

• What is there beyond the Standard Model?– Is SUSY the way forward?– Superstrings?– Something we haven’t even thought of yet?

Are there new areas we should be involved in?…

• New experiments?– 0 decay?– LFV?– Cosmic neutrinos?– Lorentz violation experiments?– Dark energy experiments?

Who knows....but this is a particle physics problem!

New Facilities?• What is needed in neutrino physics?

– New Superbeam?– Beta Beam?– Neutrino Factory?

• Will there be new machines at the energy frontier?– What LHC upgrades?– Linear Collider, or CLIC?– Maybe even a Muon Collider?

• The CERN Council Strategy Group is starting up again.....

Freeman Dyson said it best:

"New directions in science are launchedby new tools more often than by new concepts. The effect of a concept-driven revolution is to explain old things in new ways. The effect of a tool-driven revolution is to discover new things that have to be explained!"

Conclusions?• The Rutherford Lab has been part of most

of the great advances in particle physics over the last 50 years – the most productive time in the history of the subject.

• We are well positioned to repeat that in the next 50 years!

• Anyone who says our field is facing stagnation is not paying attention – we may have to change methods, but methods are not core to what we do, the questions are.

• You are young, and have more to lose than we do – learn as fast as you can, and

GET INVOLVED!